First Frame

A friend had a silk map he wanted framed. I naively said I could do it no problem. This is the first frame I’ve done and couldn’t believe the challenges I encountered. The map is stretched over 3/8 plywood so the weight was considerable. I was doing the project pro bono so I tried to keep material costs to a minimum. The plexi was ridiculous so I decided to make the frame out of pine to keep it cheap. In hind sight I should have just paid for some walnut or oak because the pine just did not want to hold the weight I was asking it to. I finally came up with a plan to make the plywood support the frame instead of vice versa and it turned out well. The ‘customer’ was happy and that’s what matters. A lot of lessons learned on my part as well. Thanks for looking.

Yeah Reed, I thought what could be simpler than a frame? Until I went to make my first one! You did good on this one (even if you cheated with the plywood gussets). I would have splined the miters for strength but your gussets should be REALLY strong. Nice job on the whole project. Now go make another!